[ SECRET POST #1943 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1943 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 07 pages, 161 secrets from Secret Submission Post #278.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 1 2 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom.livejournal.com]

09. http://i40.tinypic.com/2kg7y1.png

[hinodeh.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I think there must be some weirdass sexist assumption behind it. It is really very common. I mean, why do women in fiction always have to be the ones to rein in the manchildren?

[(Anonymous)]

There are plenty of female characters who are silly and slapstick and childish like the men you describe, the female version of the stupid frat-boy male. You just complain that they're bimbos and say they don't count.

[(Anonymous)]

Legend of Korra

That is all.

[(Anonymous)]

Have you watched Thor?

Because I think Darcy is exactly the type of character you're looking for. I really wish that particular role wasn't so male dominated too.

(And for people saying the role has already been played by women in the form of 'bimbos', I think there is a difference between goofy characters and ditzy characters? To use Teen Wolf as an example, Scott is a male ditzy character and Stiles is a male goofy character, and while lots of women have been allowed to play the ditzy role, not that many have been allowed to play the goofy one. Although it's true I haven't watched that much older TV, so perhaps I'm wrong.)

[(Anonymous)]

My issue with some of these portrays is that the woman is often characterized as 'cold' or 'emotionally distant'. I have no problem with intelligent, serious women. I just wish shows stopped acting like being dedicated to your job/good at what you do = sacrificing things in your personal life or being incapable of connecting to other people.

[bazcat89.livejournal.com]

What you're describing is just a different sexist trope. Instead of being The Object or a Cool Girl, this character is The Mom.

[visp.livejournal.com]

The woman being the ultra-competent one who never actually leads, but just cleans up everyone's mess is an annoying stereotype. Try Archer for women who can be both competent and just as messed up as their male counterparts.

[agnes-bean.livejournal.com]

I agree that this trope can be annoying, but I have some recs!

-- Community: Britta is definitely as messed up as any of the guys, and while Shirley and Annie appear more together, they both have epic, hilarious breakdowns and screw ups, too.
-- Parks and Rec has a pretty good balance of competent and incompetent men and women.
-- As someone above says, Archer.
-- I vaguely recall Dee being a bit of a straight woman at the beginning of It's Always Sunny, but she quickly became just as horrible and incompetent and hilarious as any of the guys.

[drunken-clowns.livejournal.com]

I agree. Comedy stuff runs on buffoons. You don't watch to see the serious people wrangle the buffoons, you watch to see what funny antics the buffoons are going to get up to. If the buffoons are badly written, you might have more sympathy for the serious people, but basically the buffoons are what's entertaining about these shows in the first place. It doesn't matter that the serious people are portrayed as in the right and better at things, because they're mostly there as props for the buffoons in the first place.

There actually are some shows with really great girl buffoons, though. So if that's what you want to watch, just look a little harder for that.

[(Anonymous)]

Anyone else here think of Amy from "Futurama?" The whole reason she was created was to see if audiences would accept a female victim of slapstick (particularly noticeable in the first few seasons). Additionally, she's not always the brightest bulb in the box, but she does get a doctorate in Physics so she falls somewhere between the poles of Slapstick and Seriousness.

[raccoons.livejournal.com]

Nah, I agree, there's this big thing about women having to be the mature ones while men somehow are expected to be extremely childish. I was really young when I realized that women weren't allowed to be goofy the same way men are and it's infuriating! I'm not up for tl;dring right now but I'm pretty sure I have a book's worth of feelings about this and how it's harmful to everyone.

[intrigueing.livejournal.com]

Why should you be "happy" that the women are better than the men at everything? I thought feminism was supposed to be about equality, not female superiority. When writers try to make out that women are better than everything than men are instead of equal, it sometimes comes off as REALLY condescending, like they're going "oh yes sure honey, you're totally better than us! *nudge nudge wink wink let's humor those poor silly little ladies who actually think they're equal to men lol!*"

And also, because it's bullcrap -- i.e., it doesn't match up with real life as I know it. In my own personal experience, I fail at stuff sometimes, I'm occasionally awkward and stupid, I do embarrassing things, I become irrational, I have utterly crazy ideas that smack me in the face, I can be lazy and crude, I don't always know what's best for me, some of my jokes are lame, I have completely idiotic conversations with my friends, I have been sexually humiliated through no one's fault but my own, I have fallen head-over-heels for more than one oblivious guy, I have gotten caught up in completely bizarre mindsets that I wish someone, male or female, had been around during to smack me and yell "what do you think you're doing???", and I generally succeed in making an ass out of myself every once in a while. And I know as many guys who are smarter and more level-headed than me as I know guys who are dumber and goofier than me.

So these uber-cool-headed reasonable hyper-competent women who are always wise and poised and rational are totally unrelatable to me, meaning I prefer the male characters by default since they're the only ones who are relatable. And that annoys me because I want to have characters that I relate to who are female. I don't want to feel that I'm cut off from relatable characters because of my gender.

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

I like 30 Rock because Liz is actually the butt of the joke sometimes even if she has some superficial markers of "the mom" archetype. She's not afraid to look dumb or ridiculous; she doesn't have to be lifted up on some kind of pedestal like so many women in comedy.

Also, I think part of the female archetypes in comedy comes from the sexist notion that "women aren't funny."

[(Anonymous)]

Because unfortunate implications.

Back in the 40s/50s/60s women were silly bimbos who needed to be told what to do by a man.

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm tired of it, too.

Of course, if they did switch, we'd have people complaining "Oh, because all women are dumb and immature, right?! DDD<" Ah well; guess there will never be a show which absolutely nobody complains about. =/

[(Anonymous)]

Well you see because we have to reassure men that they deserve a woman who will be a surrogate mother and also an attractive sex object who will fuck them. This way, they are portrayed as "better than the men" in a way where it kind of looks like they are but it's not threatening because they aren't capable of stealing the spotlight from the real stars.

Anyway this is why I liked Bridesmaids. I wish there was a whole show like it that was hilarious women all the time

[(Anonymous)]

Enjoy yourself some Arrested Development, if you're looking for equal opportunity screw-ups. :]

[strike-you-out.livejournal.com]

Check out FLCL.

[darkmanifest.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's pretty rare. Only relatively current female characters I can think of who are like that are Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter (I only know her from the movies), Parker from Leverage (who is by far the silliest person in the main group while still being extremely competent at her job), and Aeon from Aeon Flux (the animated series, not the movie that turned her into a humorless bore). Unsurprisingly, I love them all.

[(Anonymous)]

First thing I thought of when I read this secret was New Girl. I'm totally hooked, but I've the sense to remain anon because I'm sure there are plenty of ppl who think it's just dumb and hate Zooey Dechanel.

[maverickz3r0]

This just reminds me how much I long for the far-off future day when people write characters first and then decide whether they're male or female.

Although I'm thinking, and I've been watching a lot of 90s sitcoms lately, and they all seem to do okay with it.

[(Anonymous)]

I miss Seinfeld. Elaine never felt like "The Mom" at all.

[lady-wormtongue.livejournal.com]

Warehouse 13 has this trope but kind of turned it on its head. Myka started off really uptight, while Pete was a big goofball. But after working together for a while Myka became a lot more fun and now they goof around together when they're not saving the world. Pete became a little more serious too, IIRC.

Also, Claudia is amazing. Actually, pretty much everyone on that show is amazing. They have a really wide range of female characters, which is so rare.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know about TV shows but commercials really like to make men look retarded. I guess they're trying to sell to women so making men the butt of the joke what works.